An Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometer's (OFDR) Performance Improvement via Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) and...

Area of Science:

• Optoelectronics
• Optical sensing
• Signal processing

Background:

• Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometry (OFDR) is a powerful technique for high-resolution measurements.
• Traditional OFDR systems often employ complex reference channels, increasing hardware costs.
• Simplifying OFDR hardware is crucial for broader adoption and cost-effectiveness.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a simplified and cost-effective OFDR hardware design.
• To investigate the efficacy of digital signal processing for data extraction in a reduced-channel OFDR.
• To maintain high resolution and measurement repeatability with the simplified system.

Main Methods:

• Replaced two reference channels (auxiliary interferometer, gas cell) with a single channel.
• Utilized digital signal processing techniques including digital frequency filtering and empirical mode decomposition.
• Employed the equal frequency resampling (EFR) algorithm to restore the OFDR trace.

Main Results:

• Successfully reduced OFDR hardware complexity and cost by simplifying reference channels.
• Demonstrated the effectiveness of digital signal processing in extracting necessary information.
• Achieved OFDR trace restoration via EFR without compromising high resolution or measurement repeatability.
• Eliminated the need for an additional analog-to-digital converter and photodetector.

Conclusions:

• The proposed method offers a significant cost reduction for OFDR hardware.
• Digital signal processing is a viable approach for data extraction in simplified OFDR systems.
• The simplified OFDR maintains performance metrics like resolution and repeatability, making it practical for various applications.